A Short and Subjective Introduction to the Spinfoam Framework for Quantum Gravity

Abstract

This is my Th\`ese d'Habilitation (HDR) on the topic of spinfoam models for quantum gravity, which I presented in l'Ecole Normale Sup\'erieure de Lyon on december 16 2010. The spinfoam framework is a proposal for a regularized path integral for quantum gravity, inspired from Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT) and state-sum models. It can also be seen as defining transition amplitudes for the quantum states of geometry for Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG).